Star Wars_ Darth Bane 02_ Rule of Two - Drew Karpyshyn [56]
That was why she was here now, waiting for a young Twi’lek she knew as Kelad’den. It was unlikely that was his actual name, however. After all, he didn’t know her real name … despite the fact that they were lovers.
Kel was a political revolutionary—a self-styled freedom fighter battling tyranny as a high-ranking member of a small extremist group determined to bring down the Republic. It had taken Zannah several months to win his trust, but he had finally succumbed. Last night, as they had lain intertwined in the rough sheets of the small bed in Zannah’s rented apartment, the Twi’lek had promised to meet her at midday in the plaza to bring her to one of his organization’s clandestine meetings.
From the height of the sun in the afternoon sky it was obvious Kelad’dan was late. Still, Zannah continued to wait. She had learned the value of patience early on in her studies …
“Secrecy. Cunning. Patience. These are the weapons of the Sith,” her Master told her.
They had left Onderon eight days before, abandoning the Star-Wake and acquiring another vessel from a Neimoidian merchant to bring them to Ambria. It was here on this remote world that Bane would begin her training.
“Act in haste and you give the advantage to your enemy,” Bane explained. “Sometimes the proper, and more difficult, course is not to act. Even the greatest warrior often fails to wait until the moment is right before striking out. That is a mistake we cannot afford to make.”
She nodded, absorbing his words and committing them to memory. But words were only part of her training. Her Master also gave her a task—a test that would prove she had truly learned her lesson.
In one of the caves near the shore of Lake Natth, a few kilometers from their camp, lived a small family of neeks: small, reptilian herbivores native to Ambria. Only a meter in height, they stood upright on their hind legs, using their tails for balance and support. Their forelimbs were short and underdeveloped, good only for digging up shallow roots or carrying small nuts back to their nests. They had long necks and tiny heads with small, toothless jaws that resembled beaks.
The first day she and Darth Bane had arrived on the world, Zannah had noticed them scurrying and darting about on the hot sands of the beach. As the first part of her training, Bane had tasked her with bringing one of the neeks to him, alive and unfettered.
The mission proved to be much harder than she first imagined. A common food source for the large carnivores that often prowled the shores of Lake Natth, neeks were skittish by nature. They would flee at the sight of her, scampering off to disappear into the small cracks and crevices in the rocks surrounding the caves where they made their home.
She couldn’t simply set a trap for one; Bane’s instructions required her to bring him one that came of its own free will. At first Zannah had tried luring them back to the camp by leaving a trail of food, but the creatures were mistrustful and spurned her offerings. Next, she tried dominating one’s mind as she had seen Bane do with the drexl. But at Lake Natth an ancient Jedi had once bound the dark side power of his enemies. That same power had emanated from the depths of the poisonous waters over the centuries, mutating the neeks and making them immune to her clumsy efforts to control them with the Force.
In the end she realized she would have to tame one, training it to grow accustomed to her presence. So early each morning she made her way down to the entrance of the cave, where she would sit cross-legged and practice the meditation exercises Bane was teaching her.
She would stay motionless for hours, then calmly get up and return to the camp in the late afternoon, only to repeat the process the next morning. For the first three days she was completely alone, but on the fourth day the neeks began to show themselves.